Bad news out of Cabo!!!

[saltspray]

This email report comes by way of Danilo Mathews, one of the noted photographers for the Bisbee Black & Blue, and other Tournaments in the Cabo and East Cape areas. I hope someone knows where to enlist some help with this one!


From: OWENSSPORTFISHIN@aol.com
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:38:09 -0400
Subject: (no subject)
To: glighthome@hotmail.com; gene@mexfish.com


"Hola, I just received a very disturbing note from Dannilo
in Cabo ; telling of 22 tuna trawlers dragging near the
coast and hauling up everything that swims!

Apparently, Dan is trying to have a meeting of owners,
skippers and others in an effort to send out 50 or 60
boats to disrupt the fleet; which is in sight of the shoreline.
They have been out there running around for three days
pulling tons of by-catch along with everything else.
As I get more information I'll pass it along .

Bill Owens"

[livetofishnj]

Gotta love mexico, billions of tourism dollars coming in to fish and yet they have a management policy of "wrap 'em all and let the meathooks sort them out"

it's sad, we're changing the way we fish to reduce mortality, and yet operations like this are still permitted across the ocean.

[capt. jakeg]

Something has got to be done with these large scale operations. The amount of fish they catch effects the entire ecosystem all over the ocean. What a dumb move by mexico.

[Roddy Hays]

A couple of pics Dave Brackmann sent me of the operation. Not good news at all. He said :

"FYI - This is completely legal as tuna are not designated as a sport fish only designated fish like marlin and dorado are inside of 50 nm from the coast. Seiners can and do fish anywhere they want when targeting tuna as they have done here. It really is shocking to me that the Mexican government doesn't place more value on tuna and see the value of these fish to the tourist / sport fishing economy of the region and allows the commercial sector to go anywhere they want and decimate the tuna schools. Hmm...the seiners do the same in Southern California every year when any yellowfin or bluefin show..rape it and clean them out. The loss of these tuna also impacts blue marlin stocks in the region as without larger food prey like tuna and dorado, the area can not sustain these top predators. Similar to coming in and wiping out all the zebra herds - no zebra - no lions.

On April 29th, a contact of mine called Alex Rogers said :

"I just got back from Cabo Yesterday.

And it was unbelievable. The Seiners were everywhere friday & saturday. I bet I saw half a dozen helicopters. They were dropping about 1-2 miles off the arch and staying within 1-2 miles of the beach all the way to Pamillia.

What good are 10 lb tunas? Cat food?

Sunday they had already raped the waters and they were gone.

Just a few stragglers here and there.

On another note I found myself right in the middle of the Seiner fleet I had 3 boats on my port & 2 boats in front of me within 500-1000 yds. and i was casting to a swordie. Made 1 bad cast and 2 perfect casts and couldnt get him to go. I am sure he found his way into the nets later that day.

Anyways. Stripers were thick inside to about 2-3 miles off the beach.

[tunabite]

that is sick!!! saw a few seiners off costa rica this winter, it wasnt pretty. saw the operation up close one day. i had found some spinner porpoises and caught some small tunas and 1 or 2 sails on em then here comes the helicopter. a short time later i saw the seiner coming off in the distance. we were still gettin a few sail bites so i hung around. once he got there i dont think it was much more than an hour and he had em all rounded up. the only bright side was i got to watch at least some of the porpoises escape. pretty sad stuff. needless to say, there werent many tunas around for the next week or so.............

[Capt. Brian Daley]

Kiss that place goodby

[dunn6253]

This is totally bummin! Is there something that us people not on the west coast can do to help get rid of the seiners? Im pretty sure that a petition and public speaking helped to ban the seiners out of cape cod bay for I think 2 or 3 years, the last I heard. If we can do anything, let me know. Keep us updated as to what becomes of this.

[Admin]

Anyone have an update on this all ?
That is insane.

[tom s]

JMHO,it takes mordida!The mexican commercials are there and im sure can afford MORE that we WOULD be willing to pay.Tom

[saltspray]

I have only had one email from my Cabo source, and all he mentioned was that the seiners had cleared out late Sunday and Monday last. He is getting me more info, and as he does I will post it.